


Betweeen His Heart and Detroit's Finest

by Missy



Category: Evil Dead (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Historical, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-05
Updated: 2010-07-05
Packaged: 2017-10-10 09:53:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/98357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If given the choice, she would choose him.  That doesn't change when her loneliness drives her to join him in his slumber...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Betweeen His Heart and Detroit's Finest

The day passed along pleasantly enough. There were rugs to beat and ale to brew and servants to supervise, joints of beef to roast over pit fires; songs to be learned and played upon and new dances to master. There were exhausted men to jolly up, their festering wounds to salve.

To the women in Lady Sheila's employ, she was an invaluable asset, yet none tried to meet her red-eyed glare.

She gazed out the window as she sewed, foot tapping the floor impatiently.

His horse returned near nightfall – riderless.

***

The days passed by in a numbing parade. A month, a month, a year. Arthur dithered over her fate – a more strategic match could be made for her, a richer one.

If only her virtue hadn't been compromised…

When none of his suggestions moved Sheila he told her she would be sent her to her mother's people in Wales. A suitable match was stricken with her cousin Jonas, who knew not of her relationship with The Promised One.

It was a decision made, as all decisions in her life were, without Sheila's consent.

***

The night before her entourage's scheduled departure, Sheila burst into the wiseman's room, her hair unbound and her eyes wild.

"Where did ye send him?"

He stared at her blankly. "A place where ye cannot find him, m'lady."

"Was it some sort of spell? Can ye cast it again?" She began to prowl through the hand-bound books for a solution.

"T'was a potion," he explained. "The Promised One sleeps so deeply that naught can wake up."

Sheila began to pace. "I must go to him."

The wiseman shook his head. "M'lady, he goes where you cannot. Weep not - thy couin has arranged thee a suitable match..." he lauded.

Sheila froze. "Suitable? To Jonas, who once beat a horse to death afore me? I care naught for him."

"Ye shall grow to love him…"

"I could never love one as cruel as he. And what else doth this world promise me? All I own shall belong to my husband, the remainder of my time to be frittered away at foolish pursuits, my body to be torn with children unloved by their sire… Nay, I would seize my own destiny. Tell me where he lies." A sharp edge entered her voice, the smallest hint of a threat.

He noted the mad hopelessness in her eyes, and with a shrug simply gave in. "In the caves, m'lady."

"I go to seek him, then…." She impulsively reached over to hold him. "Farewell, John."

He had known her from her birth, and knew when her temper was unmovable. "But what of Arthur?"

She softened a bit at the mention of his name. "He will understand. And if he understands not, ye must make him do so."

He pushed her gently away. "God go with ye, then, m'lady."

Sheila's voice was light as she left. "And with thee, Sir."

***

Kezia was an amazing mare. The oldest dam in the stable, she knew the roads and ruts of the kingdom better than any human. Sheila simply pointed her in the right direction – in a half-hour's time, they arrived at the cave.

She turned at its mouth and released her faithful mount to the wild. "Go," Sheila encouraged her gently. "Art free." The horse obliviously pawed at the ground, then bowed her head to feast on a copse of grass nearby.

Some creatures, Sheila noted, simply had no way to cope with the notion of freedom. Sheila turned toward the rock-filled mouth of the cave and, with a fervent zeal, pulled down stone after stone, until a hole large enough for her to crawl through formed in the mass.

The headlaps of the Chosen's chariot glowed in the darkness, leaving Sheila enough light to seal again the mouth of the cave. In the body of the contraption he'd arrived with The Promised One lay curled against the seat, his hands a pillow and his lashes a fan of darkness on his tanned cheekbones.

And there remained space enough for two.

"I promised not to follow thy wake…Ye must forgive me." Sheila whispered. She climbed up onto the tank's hood, settled in the crook of Ash's shoulder and reached for the vial the Wiseman had given her.

The words and the deed were done with remarkable speed. She smiled blearily and stretched her body out, laying herself between his heart and Detroit's finest, his warmth a human shield against the march of progress. Sheila was, she decided, where she belonged after all.

"My only love," she mumbled, drifting into the dark.

***  
Like clockwork, they awakened at quarter past noon, sometime much, much later. Sheila's eyes opened to a world painted shades of periwinkle and sand – a world lorded over by two pairs of eyes, staring at her vulgarly.

Sheila flew into a sitting position with a shriek, regretting her quick action as her muscles screamed and her head smacked into the tank's overhanging roof. Outside the Oldsmobile a pair of children peered in amazement as the two figures began to stir their long-comatose limbs.

Sheila smiled; the boy reminded her of her brother. "Shoo," she mouthed, flicking her fingers dismissively, sending them away screaming.

Silence. Then a hand clasped her wrist loosely. She took a deep breath before turning to take in his reaction.

And then she smiled for him. "Good morrow, m'lord."

THE END


End file.
